Frozen
by Charlie Anne Lines
Summary: "The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches." ― E.E. Cummings. Caitlin is frozen,dying and Barry is powerless to stop it.


Frozen

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."  
― E.E. Cummings

Barry sighed heavily, arms aching from carrying a drunken Ronnie about two miles to his, _their,_ housefrom the dimly lit, cockroach hole of a bar he was drowning his sorrows in. Right now the drunk fire starter was passed out on the bed that _they_ shared, eyes moving quickly underneath his closed eyelids. Barry could guess very well who he was dreaming about.

Pursing his lips, Barry moved from the bedroom doorway he was leaning on to shrug his coat back on and speed home.

Home wasn't any better for Barry. For months he had been avoiding the pictures on his bed stand for fear of capturing her bright eyes in a lifeless piece of paper, but now he held the most recent picture her had of her in his palms, sweat threatening to tear the frame from his hands. It was the last picture he could remember taking with Caitlin.

It was just a few weeks after she had been married, and only a few days after he had his latest near death experience with the particle accelerator. They were having a celebratory dinner at the West residence to praise Barry for surviving, and in all honesty Barry had thought the he deserved at least three of these dinners a week. Though as hungry as he was he was having too much fun with Joe, Iris, Cisco, Ronnie and Caitlin to eat the steak in front of him. At a later point in the evening Joe had rounded them up to take a picture.

Barry had sat in the middle, Iris grinning widely on his right. Ronnie stood behind him with a grin and a hand on Caitlin's shoulder. Caitlin herself sat on Barry's left a little behind him, her chin resting on his shoulder so she could actually be part of the picture, the most amazing smile he had seen on her graced her face. Cisco who sat opposite them had turned around and stuck his head into the picture, leaving only his dorkiest smile and neck on display.

It was his favourite picture, and just looking at it sent tendrils of tears running down his face, because now Caitlin was dead, he would never see her again, and as it sunk in for the first time to Barry since she died, it felt like someone was driving an icy knife into his heart.

So he closed his eyes, trying to escape the pain.

5 months earlier…

It had been a few weeks since Barry had stopped the second explosion started by particle accelerator. He felt pretty good about himself. He had however noticed that Caitlin had been acting slightly differently. More physically than emotionally it seemed.

It started out lightly at first. She would drink hot drinks most of the time instead of having a water every now and again. Then she started wearing jumpers, even though temperatures were high and it was the middle of summer.

When Barry would ask her about it she would just pass it off, saying she felt colder than usual. So Barry would trust her and let it drop.

3 months earlier…

Barry had decided that letting it drop was the worst idea he could have had. He decided this when watching Caitlin brush the whitening hair out of her face, eyes that were usually a dark brown glazed with a softer chocolate colour had started to turn a chilling blue around the middle of her irises. They were extremely noticeable against the pale, almost snowy white of her skin.

Caitlin had taken to wearing thick woollen sweaters at all times, no matter how hot it was outside, and even with the heavy layer Barry could still see her shivering out of the corners of his eyes. Her bottom lip that had started to turn a pale blue mixed in with the soft pink had been overlaid by a straight line of white teeth as Cisco took a fresh vial of blood to run tests.

To say Barry was worried was an understatement.

2 months earlier…

Caitlin had taken a turn for the worse. She lay in a hospital at S.T.A.R labs, tubes running through her veins, and an irritating heart monitor at her side. In less than a month Caitlin's hair had turned fully white, her pale skin would now be camouflaged against snow. Her eyes, when open looked like icicles had taken it upon hang in her irises. She struggled with breathing, the cold obviously affecting her lungs.

She shivered a lot, Barry noticed as he held her hand while sitting next her bed. As if it wasn't enough that he was constantly cold while holding her icy skin, but now some obviously sick higher power decided that she needed to be freezing all the time herself.

Barry didn't like it. At all. The only breakthrough he and Cisco had made, was figuring out that the second particle accelerator reaction had obviously affected her differently this time around. It frustrated Barry that he could do nothing to help her.

He really wanted to help her.

1 month, 2 weeks earlier…

Caitlin had been officially announced as 'in a coma'. Barry had been in the same boat as her but at least he had more than one visitor. It's not that the other didn't visit her. They did just not often. Barry however was practically glued to her side at any free moment her had. Like right now.

The others, even Ronnie, Caitlin's husband, had gone to have drinks with Oliver and Felicity while they passed through Central City, and it was the only thought running through Barry's mind when Caitlin's heart monitor let out along monotonous beep.

Barry could barely move when the hired nurses and doctor paid to look after Caitlin a S.T.A.R labs had come rushing through the door, pushing him out the way in a hasty scramble to save Caitlin's live.

Then when they finally called the time of her death. Barry stood looking at her body as the doctor and nurses moved out of the door in slow motion, almost as frozen as the icy body lying on the bed.

3 weeks earlier…

Barry wouldn't go to her funeral. He couldn't force himself out of the fort of blankets to watch people he didn't know lower his friend into the ground that was just as icy as her skin in the last few weeks of her life.

He hadn't cried either. Which he felt guilty for, but Joe has assured him that some people didn't cry when they lost a loved one. Barry didn't want Joe to reassure him, he wanted Joe to scream at him, to call him a monster for not crying, to storm into his room and demand that he go say goodbye the friend that he would never see again, but Joe didn't and in a small way Barry appreciated that.

He didn't move for a few days after the funeral. Iris had told him that the service had lovely, all Barry did was nod and stare blankly at the ceiling as Iris sighed heavily and forced the stiff door shut again. It was after that Barry decided he needed to get up. He needed to get back into routine. He needed to save people.

Because he couldn't save her.

Present…

For a moment, a minuscule moment it felt like someone had removed the knife from his chest. His eyes opened rapidly and looked up. Eyes decorated with icy crystals met his and crinkled from the seemingly warm smile that spread across their owners pale blue lips.

"Caitlin," Barry murmured, a warm hand with long pink fingers moved up the woman's pale and icy cheek and into her frosty white hair. Barry sighed and pulled her face down to meet their lips in a kiss.

But when Caitlin's frozen lips met his, Barry's eyes snapped open. He woke up, into a reality that hurt him, and when the tears started again, following the sticky tracks of those previously shed, Barry forced himself to smile.

Caitlin would want him to smile.


End file.
